


We Walk Like Humans Do

by ToothPasteCanyon (DannyFenton123)



Series: Transcendence AU [11]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Alternate Universe - Transcendence (Gravity Falls), Basilisks, Gen, Shapeshifting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-14
Updated: 2019-09-12
Packaged: 2020-06-28 02:24:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19802773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DannyFenton123/pseuds/ToothPasteCanyon
Summary: The Transcendence has been, on the whole, a good thing for magical creatures... for the ones that walked on two legs and fit in doorways, at least. Lacie has other problems to overcome before she can live in the big city.Inspired by tinylittlegremlin's ideas on the TAU Discord.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to StarlightSystem for help editing this story! Go check out their awesome stuff at https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarlightSystem/pseuds/StarlightSystem

The Transcendence has been, on the whole, a good thing for magical creatures. True, there’s been no shortage of misunderstandings and pro-nat sentiments over the years, but all those centuries of hiding away from humans had been just as harmful.

Humans are everywhere, after all. Avoiding them means avoiding most places on Earth, holing yourself away in dwindling forests and as-of-yet unexplored cave systems. Some could pass as human and live in their cities, but pre-Transcendence accounts of disguised elves or vampires often spoke of the burden of carrying such an immense secret, the disconnect they felt with any humans they befriended. They could never truly live as themselves.

For some magical creatures, the Transcendence changed that. The Transcendence let them live freely amongst the humans, let them attend their schools and work alongside them to better the world.

For some magical creatures, the Transcendence was the single best thing that had ever happened to them.

For others?

Well… for the less humanoid ones, they didn’t notice so much of a difference. For Lacie, she was still hanging out in the same old sewers she’d been hatched in.

After all, when you’re a giant basilisk several bus-lengths long and capable of killing a man with a single glance, there are more obstacles to living in the city than ‘not feeling like you can be true to yourself.’

* * *

A snore rumbles through the depths of London’s sewers. Deep, deep underground, somewhere in a maze of rank-smelling tunnels sloshing with wastewater, there lies a hidden door, and behind that door slumbers a vicious, terrible monster guarding a tome of forbidden knowledge.

That’s how the treasure hunters always describe Lacie’s home on the forums, and honestly, she finds it a little insulting. They’ll go on and on about how much the place stinks and how loudly she snores; it’s like they expect her to fix it or something, and… no? This is a sewer, it’s going to smell bad. And she needs to sleep, so it’s going to be noisy, too.

If they’re gonna come down here to try and slay her and steal her shit, the least they can do is stop being so goddamn whiny about it.

Like, look at these bozos coming in now. Lacie was having such a peaceful nap until they started messing around with the hidden door.

She cracks a tired eye open, and glares at the sound of their voices.

“No, it’s this one!” A rock shudders on the wall. “Didn’t you read the riddle? You touch the symbols clockwise!”

“How did you get clockwise from the riddle? It’s way more complicated than that; the cipher clearly states-”

“A-B-C-D. Clockwise.”

“No, that’s- ABCD? Where on earth did you get ABCD?”

Lacie lets out a rumbling sigh. Incompetent treasure hunters, oh joy. She shifts a little bit on her pile of gold, and waits for them to bumble their way into a solution so she can go back to sleep.

“Look, I don’t know how you’re getting ABCD, so why don’t we try my way first, and if mine doesn’t work-”

“It’s absolutely not going to work.”

“It will! I took a class in cryptography once, I know how this works.”

“Ooo, aren’t you special.”

“Look, just let me work, will you?”

“Do it fast. Ugh, it smells like death down here.”

At least it’s more bearable than your voice, Lacie thinks. She snorts at her own joke before hooking her tail around a wooden sign and dragging it in closer. She’ll need this later - quite a while later, most likely, but it’s good to be prepared.

“That didn’t work?”

“Of course it didn’t work, you idiot. I’ll open it-”

“Hey, wait, maybe I did that wrong! Let me try that again!”

“No, you had your chance!”

“Just let- hey, get off me!”

“No, you get off me!”

“Come on dude, just let me try-”

After listening to the treasure hunters scuffle and shout at each other for what felt like forever, Lacie hears a _click_ in the door’s opening mechanism. The whole thing starts to rumble and dust loosens from the ceiling as it opens inwards, revealing… well, she doesn’t look at them directly in case they’re dumb enough not to bring basilisk protection, but she makes out two human figures with rifle-shaped sticks, which they immediately point at her face.

“There it is!” The first man ushers the other back. “Stay behind me!”

“Stay behind you? Dude, I’m a way better shot.”

“What? No way, you are not!”

“I totally am. Don’t you remember back at the range-”

Lacie lets out a hiss before they can get into another stupid argument. She points the end of her tail at the sign, and it takes them a second to notice.

“It’s doing something weird.”

“Quick, let’s shoot it!”

“No, look, that’s a sign it’s holding!” The second guy peers at the message. “Says ‘Fighting not needed, can’t let you take the physical book but am posting all chapters online at https- wait, you have a website?”

She nods. A blog, actually.

“Don’t be stupid.” The other guy gives him a shove. “There’s no way it has a website; this is some sort of trick!”

“Yeah… yeah, you’re right! Wait, how is it a trick?”

“Obviously it’s to confuse us and distract us from getting the treasure!” He cocks his rifle. “We have to stay focused! Stay behind me, I’ll get this thing right between the eyes-”

Lacie finally looks down at the guy. Their gazes meet, the guy’s eyes widen; he yelps and staggers back, dropping his rifle and slapping a hand over his face… but he doesn’t drop dead. A second later, he peeks out behind his fingers.

“I’m… still alive!” He cackles. “These contact lenses really do work!” Ha! Take that, you dumb lizard!”

The other guy high fives him. “Yeah, take that! Now let’s kill this thing!”

Huh, they’re slightly more prepared than she thought. Lacie stares at his smug smile a moment longer, then swings her tail around and dashes both of them against the right wall.

There are no contact lenses that protect against blunt force trauma. They let out short-lived screams, cut off as soon as their bodies crash against stone; there’s a chorus of splintering cracks, then silence as they crumple to the ground amongst a pile of other shattered skeletons.

Lacie looks at them now. Listens to all the familiar noises that could be heard in the absence of their voices - the dull roar of running water, the drips that fall from the ceiling and splash in puddles, the tinkling of gold coins as she shifts her weight.

All the things she could hear, now that they were dead.

Does she feel bad?

Eh… sort of.

She feels... more frustrated than anything else, these days. It’s not like she doesn’t give them a chance to escape, and they are trying to kill her… but still. It’s such a senseless loss of life - especially for such young, stupid humans - and over what? Some useless book?

She turns and glares at it now, sitting on its little lecturn at the far end of the room. Stupid thing.

One day, she will be free of it.

But for now, she’s tired. She lays her head on glittering gold, closes her eyes, and falls asleep to all the quiet, comforting sounds of her home.

She probably starts snoring, too… fuck, they’ve made her self conscious about it.

* * *

_Chapter 7 of Wizard Animago’s Not-So-Secret Spellbook - His Shitty Death Spells and Why They’re Not to Die For, Seriously_

_Hey everyone, this is 18Lacie5 back with another chapter overview. I know it’s been a year since I last posted, sorry about that. I’m usually way too tired to work on one of these - the joys of being cold blooded in England. Annnnnyyyyywwwwaaaayyyy, here is the much-anticipated chapter on ol’ Animago’s secret death spells!_

_Spoiler alert: it’s gonna disappoint you._

_Now, for anybody new reading this, Sironus Animago was a 19th century English wizard that specialised in the study of animal transmogrification. If you don’t know who he is, that’s because he was a recluse who hated humanity so much he spent half his life trying to turn himself into literally anything else. The only time anybody hears about him is generally in treasure hunting circles, concerning a riddle he left behind for ‘any man worthy enough to learn his secrets.’ It is said that he wrote a spellbook containing all the knowledge he had accumulated over his lifetime, and considered it so dangerous he bound a basilisk into guarding it after his passing._

_Well, I am that basilisk, and I’m here to tell you why Animago’s spellbook is stupid and absolutely not worth dying for._

_This chapter’s an easy one: his death spells suck. Even by pre-Transcendence standards, they suck. He wasn’t the slightest bit interested in offensive magic, and I’m pretty sure he threw these ones in here because hey, every spellbook’s gotta have a spooky scary dark magic section, right?_

_Let’s examine the first spell of Chapter 7: ‘Planis fugere a mortalis huius’ (a moment of silence for that Latin.) So ‘fly away from this mortal plane(s?)’ sounds pretty and all, but it’s way too poetic to be a reliable spell. Unlike the standard modern equivalent, which is, you know, just ‘Die’, your magic’s gonna have to figure out a whole lot about this sentence before it puts it into action. Fly away, how? Where are they flying to? What could count as our ‘planis’ here? The ground?_

_You see how easily this could result in something like giving your enemy a pair of wings instead of killing them. Great. That’s totally what you’d want to happen in battle, right?_

_This issue would have come up immediately in testing, which leads me to believe it was a purely theoretical spell of Animago’s, and not a particularly good one (but hey, at least it’s original this time, right?) As with all of them it does come with the minorly unique addition of alternate pronounciations in five different animal forms, but again, unless you’re turning yourself into a chicken, a dog, a hawk, a bear or a snake on a regular basis, when are you ever going to need this?_

_All in all, probably the worst chapter in the entire spellbook, with sloppy, overly complex incantations I’d toss away in a heartbeat if not for the fact that I’ve been bound into protecting them. Next post, we tackle chapter 11: turning your furniture into animals!_

_(Because that’s what your couch is missing. Teeth and claws and an ability to run away from you.)_

_Do s both a favour, and don’t make me kill you over these shitty spells._

Curled around her favourite pile of gold, Lacie scrolls down her blog, reading its contents with drooping eyes. She uses her tail to move a laptop’s trackpad, which makes it a little difficult to navigate - the frustration she feels whenever the clicker shoots off in random directions is the main reason she’s still awake - but not as much as one might be expecting, as the laptop is not an ordinary laptop. 

It’s gigantic. The screen is bigger than her, and the top almost scratches against the ceiling. Carefully balanced above the wet stone on four smaller gold piles, the charging port is wired up to a truly massive, glowing purple power strip. It hums with magical energy, charging her laptop as she gets to the end of the blog post.

‘ _Do s both a favour_ ’... ah, typo. Lacie shoves her mouse in the general direction of the edit button for a few seconds before landing on it; now she clicks, adds a u, and struggles her way back to the main page.

Fixed. That was totally worth the effort.

She lets out a snort, which turns into a great big yawn and leaves her head resting on top of the laptop. The metal’s got some warmth to it; she feels that against her cheek, and almost immediately starts struggling to keep her eyes open.

This was a mistake, she thinks. Come on, she literally just got up! She can’t go right back to sleep!

Just a little more time… to herself… without any… any humans… she was supposed to... to...

The distant whoosh of water overhead and the steady hum of the power strip lulls her closer and closer to sleep, and she tries one last time to lift up her eyelids-

And _plop._

A little water droplet lands right in her eye, and she jumps. Rises up, blinks rapidly - first to get the blurriness out of her vision, then to get rid of the sleepiness already creeping its way back in.

She shakes her head to clear it. Once she’s mostly awake again, she lets out a triumphant little puff of air: not today, sleep! Not when she’s got shit to do!

With that, Lacie turns back to her laptop and mouses over to another tab, titled ‘List of Craig’ and next to it, ‘(1)’ for one new message. She’s been waiting for that (1) to show up - hopefully she hasn’t taken too long to respond back.

The tab opens after she jabs left click a couple times, revealing a short chatbox:

_L at 20:25: [is that double length chalk shipment still available?]_

_M at 20:35: [yes]_

_L at 20:36: [would be very interested in buying that, are you are ok with teleswitch methods of payment? you don’t have to wheel it anywhere, just let me know where it is in the house]_

Fifteen whole minutes later at 20:51, there’s the much-anticipated reply:

_[k]_

Lacie reads this, and has a sudden urge to smack her head against the keyboard. With a growl rumbling in her throat, she gets typing

_L at 20:52: [okay, where is the shipment in your house? what room? the spell i use needs this.]_

She sends it off… and waits, scowling at the chatbox.

And waits...

And waits...

And is still waiting. Stars, maybe she could’ve taken a nap.

Speaking of that, her eyelids are starting to droop again. She huffs and shakes her head in a couple quick, flicking movements; that jolts her back awake, and she clicks back to her blog page.

The latest post on chapter 7 stares back at her. In the dim-lit room, it’s glaring down on her, almost accusingly.

 _Next post,_ it reads, _we tackle chapter 11: turning your furniture into animals!_

_Post updated: less than two minutes ago_

_Post uploaded: more than two years ago_

Lacie sighs. This is what happens now when she takes a nap.

Years, they’ve begun to pass her by like _nothing_. All she remembers of the past two are groggy hazes, half-recalled dreams; the only times she’d wake would be to fend off the occasional treasure hunter, then back to her slumber she’d go, like that was her only purpose in life.

It didn’t used to be this way. She didn’t used to feel so tired all the time. Why?

...She’s getting too big for her home. The magic that sustains her, it isn’t enough anymore.

That’s got to be the explanation.

Which means she’s got to get out of here. She’s got to break that damn binding that tethers her to the spellbook…

Lacie shoots a look at it now. Glares at the stony grey lectern it rests on, and everything piled around the base of that. The wax candles. The incense burners. The unholy artefacts. The tomes upon tomes of academic research, summoning circle references, nonstandard incantation guides…

She has to break it.

By any means necessary.

…

She’s got a new message from the human.

_M at 21:13: [I put it outside for you. Its in the back yard. Your welcome.]_

With an eyeroll, Lacie wraps her tail around the lectern’s pole and brings it in closer. The spellbook slides precariously around the surface it’s resting on, but with a bit of care she places it down in front of her without anything falling off the edges.

Now, the book - she peers at it now.

As always, it looks like a mess; its leather binding had been handmade by Wizard Animago himself, but only because the guy was too paranoid to have anybody else do it. He did a sloppy job, and over the centuries it had fallen to pieces until the only thing holding it together anymore was a couple remaining strings and a headache-inducing cocktail of protection charms.

For Lacie, it’s tiny, making it incredibly hard to flip through. She can’t help but wonder if it had seemed this tiny the last time she’d opened it… maybe she’d grown a little bigger since then.

Stuffing that thought down, she keeps flipping; past Chapter 2 on transfiguration, past Chapter 3 on general transmutation, Chapter 4 on alchemy… Chapter 5, there it is.

And bingo bongo, there’s the spell she wants: ‘Sironus Animago’s Telekinetic Switch’... and Lacie can’t help but snort at that name, because it isn’t actually a spell he invented.

Like many less-than-reputable wizards of his time, he had a habit of stealing spells from contemporaries in other fields of magic, slapping his name in front of them and trying to pass them off as his own to pad out the number of chapters in his spellbook.

(The internet was a terrible invention for guys like him. Lacie had a lot of fun ripping into this practice when she wrote about Chapter 5.)

Anyway, while she could find the original spell anywhere on the internet, there is something Animago added to every entry he wrote down in his book - that something is off to the far right, almost obscured by the yellowing and curling of the page.

Here, next to five simple illustrations of a chicken, a dog, a hawk, a bear, and a snake, are the alternate pronounciations of the spell.

Lacie squints at the last line - her mouth moves as she refamiliarises herself with the incantation - then she nods to herself, and scoops up a generous portion of gold coins, and closes her eyes.

Pictures a backyard, with a crate full of summoning chalk, just waiting for her to pick them up.

And with that in mind, she speaks.

Not in words. Not in a language. She speaks in hisses and spits, in a string of meaningless noises that fit better in her mouth than any human tongue. At the end of it, though, that specific arrangement of sounds triggers an enchantment, which triggers the telekinetic switch.

The coins in her grasp blink out of existence. A second later, they’re replaced by a crate of summoning chalk. It rattles when she picks it up; the sound echoes around her room until she puts it down by the rest of her demon supplies.

There’s a lot piled up there now, Lacie thinks. Enough to summon a demon, and at that, she grimaces. Suppresses a yawn.

She’d better get on with it, then.

* * *

Lacie is starting to think that maybe demons don’t design their summoning rituals with basilisks in mind.

She’s cleared a space in her room for the circle - has shrunk her laptop back down to normal size with one of Animago’s spells - and now that it’s time to draw the thing, she’s encountered a problem.

Have you ever tried to draw a chalk circle on wet stone tiles? Have you ever tried to do it without hands?

It is, in a word, difficult.

Fortunately, she’d seen this issue coming from day one. She bought a shape template from some website selling school supplies, and blew it up with the same sizing spell she uses on her laptop. She put that over a stone slab she pulled off a drier part of the wall, traced the circle, and voila! A summoning circle.

(She still needed to decorate it, but she’d rather intentionally chosen a demon with a simpler design. It didn’t take too long to replicate, all things considered.)

Now onto the candles. To Lacie’s eternal disappointment, there’s no spell on the books for fire, or heat, or anything like that; she has to get creative. While rifling through the backpacks of some ex-treasure hunters, she comes across a portable gas cooker. The ignition is a simple switch she can flip - _tick tick tick fwoom_ , it goes, then fire.

She keeps that close to her, ready to use.

After that… The incantation. She physically can’t pronounce the Latin chants needed to perform a sufficiently compelling summoning, which is a big problem. Most powerful demons - ones powerful enough to break bindings - tend to be rather picky about how they’re summoned. Unless it’s done exactly right, they won’t bother showing up for her.

She needs a demon that’ll be a little more forgiving, and after pouring through textbooks, how-to guides, summoning lists, there’s only one name that seems to fit the bill.

Lacie lights the candles, one by one, and watches as the circle of Alcor the Dreambender begins to glow.

Strange things begin to happen. Shadows lengthen. The air gets colder - she feels that like a punch in the gut. In the centre of the chalk lines, a wispy black smoke forms, and golden eyes open from within the darkness.

Those eyes… Lacie isn’t used to being scared of things, but she stares into those eyes and knows, suddenly, definitively, that she isn’t the monster in the room anymore.

They turn to look at her now, and-

“Ow!” The void-black being winces back, rubbing its forehead. “What the heck? It’s like a migraine… what is this?”

She blinks. Huh, her stare works on demons. They didn’t mention that the summoning guides.

The demon’s straightening again. “Is this a binding? Because guys, I’m gonna be real annoyed if you tried… to… to bind me with..? Guys?”

It looks around the circle in confusion… then up, up, following the line of her body to meet her eyes again.

“Oh.” It gives a hard blink. “Ow, _okay._ You know you’re supposed to give me a sacrifice _before_ you sic me on the big scary snake monster, right?”

Shit, it doesn’t see the sign. She holds it up higher.

“Like, at least a little bit of candy for starters, y’know? Just to be like ‘Hey, I appreciate you for coming all this way’ and I’ll be like ‘Thanks! Now I actually feel motivated to save you from-’” It notices the sign, and pauses. “Um. Hang on a second, I’m missing something.”

Lacie watches the demon read over the sign: BOUND TO SPELLBOOK, it reads, DEAL TO BREAK BINDING IN EXCHANGE FOR HUMAN SACRIFICES? Its glowing eyes steadily widen, and it glances back up at her.

“Wait, you summoned- agh!” It blocks her stare with a hand. “You summoned me?”

She nods.

“Okay, that’s… new. What did you want again… spellbook... break binding to spellbook- human sacrifice?” Its eyes narrow. “Where are these humans you’re talking about?”

Putting down the sign, she points at the pile next to the door. Most of them are bones by now, but hey, apparently some demons like that. She watches this one inspect them.

“Oh, they’re… not fresh. Where did they all come fr- _ow_! Okay, please stop with the staring, that’s not gonna work for me!” When she obligingly averts her gaze, he lets out a sigh. “Thank you. Now, uh, I kinda wanna know where you got all these bones from?”

He sounds way more bothered about that than Lacie thought he would. A little panic fluttering in her chest, she flips the sign over and grabs her carving rock.

“What are you…? Oh, you can’t talk, can you. Alright.” It shuffles its feet. “You wanted me to break a binding… I can see it now. Connected to that book over there?”

Out of the corner of her eye, she watches Alcor float closer to it. Closer, closer, _too close_ \- it tiggers something in her, and she has to stop writing to block it with her tail. Has to let out a hiss at the _literal demon;_ thank the stars its eyes widen in understanding instead of darkening in anger.

“Oh, you’ve been bound to guard it,” it says, stepping back. “I see. Sorry. So, those bones - they’re from people who tried to take it, right?”

Thank the stars again that it realises, because she isn’t even halfway done with the message. She nods.

“That makes sense. Wow, that must be some important spellbook you’re guarding, huh?”

An _important spellbook_ \- Lacie can’t muffle a snort as she shakes her head. Alcor laughs too, though he sounds a little bit uncomfortable.

“Oh, that, that’s gotta suck. I’m sorry, uh… What’s your name? If you have one- _oh stars what am I saying, ‘if you have one’ that sounds so rude_ -”

With another snort, she points at a welcome mat she’s carved just in front of the hidden door.

“‘Welcome to Lacie’s home. You found the way in, now’ - heh - ‘find the way out.’ I like that, it’s funny!” He grins up at her. “I guess these guys didn’t- _ow_. Agh, sorry, I was gonna say, I guess these guys didn’t see the sign when they came in, huh?”

A head shake; they did not. They certainly didn’t laugh at it either.

(To be fair, they were generally too busy gaping at the giant basilisk in the room to give an opinion on her decorations, but it was nice to finally get a little validation. She _is_ funny sometimes, isn’t she?)

“Didn’t think so.” Alcor straightens his cufflinks. “Well, Lacie, while I don’t think I can technically count this as a human sacrifice, it should still be more than enough to break any basic bond. _So_ ,”

She watches him extend a hand wreathed in blue fire, hears him speak with a voice that brings back a little of that initial fear, reminds her that as friendly as he may seem…

“D̵̜͍͖̘o̱͖̙̰̪̥̹͜ w̹͖̝̩͢e ̵̲͓̖h͇̹͖̞̦̠̮͘a̤̰v̹͔͚̭̦͜e̻ ̻̘̭̫a̩ ͈̳̯̯̰̣̪d̕e͇̪͍̜̻̪͘a̙̻̬̦͔ͅl̲̝͓͔?”

She’s still dealing with a demon.

“Wait, uh… you don’t have to shake.” He retracts his hand, demonic reverb gone as suddenly as it showed up, but the memory of it sticks. “You can just, you know, nod or something, that’s fine.”

Lacie thinks hard on that for a moment. She glances back at the spellbook, the _stupid, useless_ spellbook she’s been bound to, sitting on a lecturn in a room she’s been trapped in her whole life, a room that’s getting smaller and smaller as the years go by.

She’s outgrown this, she thinks. It’s time to move on.

“Hang on a second.”

Alcor’s voice makes her turn. He’s closed his eyes, and there’s a frown on his face that Lacie doesn’t like the look of. She leans in closer, listening to him mutter to himself.

“This isn’t- now how did he do this…? Oh. _Oh_ , that’s not… dammit, that’s not good.” He opens his eyes. “Uh, Lacie? Got some bad news: I, uh, can’t break the binding.”

...What? Why not?

She blinks, watches him struggle to explain.

“I-I mean I can, technically! But not with this deal - not that I don’t want to help you, but… it’s complicated. Demon deals are complicated, there’s got to be a give and a take and it sucks, it’s...”

She watches him sigh. Frowns, as he looks away.

“Look, uh, I was going on the impression that this was a simple guardian bond, but it’s not. I didn’t think - you know, you were laughing when I said it was an important spellbook or something - I didn’t think it was gonna be some high-level magic… but it is.” He clenches his fists. “He’s managed to bind it to your _soul_ , and that gets tricky for demons. There’s got to be a give and a take, right? And if I _give_ a soul freedom…”

 _… he has to take another’s_ , Lacie thinks, and narrows her eyes. Is this heading where she thinks this is heading?

“I have to take freedom too, which… well, you don’t feel like selling your soul to me, do you?”

 _No no no,_ that’s the one thing all the manuals said never _ever_ to do! She shakes her head vigourously, and he gives a quiet chuckle.

“Yeah, didn’t think so… I really did want to help you with the binding, but I can’t. Not without enough payment in return.” The most powerful demon in the world just shrugs helplessly. “I’m sorry. It’s a stupid rule and I’m always trying to bend it if I can, but I can’t outright break it.”

Lacie looks back at the spellbook. She knows a thing or two about stupid rules she can’t break.

So, she’s going to be stuck with this thing for the rest of her life, huh? Well. This… this sucks.

What is she going to do now?

“Um, listen,” Alcor clears his throat. “I can’t- uh, I may not be able to break the binding, but if there’s anything else I can do… well, you’ve got a lot of stuff you can sacrifice to me, I can probably do just about anything - anything that’s not soul-related, anyway.”

Lacie blinks. _Just about anything..._ she could still get out of this room before it starves her. Yes, if he was able to teleport both her and the book outside-

But what would she do after that? The book’s _tiny_ ; she’d need some way to lug it around, and she’d need to do that while finding food for herself, and _oh stars all the guides on demon deals were screaming at her to be specific right now-_

“Do you need some time to decide?”

She looks down at Alcor, and nods. He floats back towards the summoning circle.

“Alright, well, call me up again when you’ve got a deal in mind...” Glancing around the circle, at the crispy candles and the shaky drawings of his symbols, he blinks, then he glances back at her. “Uh… how long did this take you to do?”

A _while,_ Lacie thinks, and snorts. He seems to get the message.

“Right, well, I’ll leave my calling card with you, so you don’t have to do that all over again.” He fishes the card out of his pocket; somehow, it comes out almost as big as him. “When you’re ready to make a deal, just prick your fing… uh, just hold it, okay? I’ll keep an eye out for you.”

She takes it, and nods. Tries for a smile, like the humans do to show gratitude.

“What are you-? Ow.” He squints away from her stare. “Um, well, it was nice meeting you, Lacie! I’m sorry I couldn’t help more.”

Alcor seems like he wants to say more, but after a moment of hesitation he gives a quick wave and disappears in a puff of smoke. The candles go out with him - remembering the sheer effort it took to light them in the first place, she cringes at that.

Well, at least she doesn’t have to summon him again. She looks from the smoke wisping off the wicks, down to the business card in her grasp.

It’s glossy and black; on one side, there’s a white circle around Alcor’s golden symbol; presumably that’s the place you’re supposed to prick your finger on. There’s a little note up top that says, ‘Need help? Summon Alcor the Dreambender today!’ and she snorts at that.

What a strange little creature… strangely endearing. She can hear how crazy she sounds thinking about it, but that demon was actually kind of a decent guy? She isn’t about to go selling her soul to him any time soon, but it felt like he genuinely wanted to help and that’s… refreshing.

It’s certainly a change of pace from the treasure hunters she usually encounters.

With that in mind, Lacie grips the card. It feels sturdier than it looks, but she still takes care tucking it underneath her. Once she’s done that, she turns back to face the circle again.

She sighs. Blinks, slowly. After something like that, all she wants to do is take a nice long nap, but...

Well, she’d better get cracking with that deal.

* * *

_Showing comments for_ _Chapter 7 of Wizard Animago’s Not-So-Secret Spellbook - His Shitty Death Spells and Why They’re Not to Die For, Seriously_

_EdgyTwedgy666: [fake lol]_

Sometimes, Lacie really doesn’t like humanity. She likes reading their writings, she likes looking at the photos they take of their world, she even likes the occasional specific human, but as a whole?

_Rey_hunter: [can you tell me how to solve animagos riddle?? plz]_

_JarrSlayer8: [I dont get it. Author keeps calling himself a battlisk? Is this a joke account, because he needs to say its a joke so people don’t get confused.]_

_Foundit_56: [hehe nice try dude… im coming for that spellbook even if your to scared to…]_

If this is what humans are like, she can understand why Animago hated being one so much. I mean seriously, she’s _telling_ people what’s in the spellbook so they’ll leave her alone, and these are the kind of comments she gets?

_Pyrocandro: [ummm, you know planis fugere a mortalis huius doesn’t translate to fly away from this mortal plane right? It looks more like go away to me… jus sayin. Maybe you should take a latin class? ;)]_

Lacie narrows her eyes.

Maybe the non-treasure hunting humans are nicer.

Maybe up on the surface, humans are actually cool and not smugly correcting her Latin on every post.

Maybe, but it’s a shame a human trapped her down here to guard his shitty book, so she might never find out.

A sigh, long and tired. She’s been brainstorming deals ever since Alcor left, but with her still lugging around the spellbook they all seemed… unfeasible. The thing is falling apart already - how’s she supposed to keep it safe out there? Call it a lack of imagination, but she’s exhausted and the only thing she can think of is to keep holing up in her room, ask Alcor to boost the energy of Animago’s old sustaining spells so it can support her again.

That would work. It would, but it feels…

Lacie grimaces.

It feels like there’s more than this. There’s a whole world out there beyond her room, beyond guarding some spellbook; she’s been looking at it ever since she took a laptop off a treasure hunter’s body. She’s been looking, she’s been reading, she’s been writing, and, just as she was about to make that deal with Alcor, she suddenly realised she’s been _wanting_.

Wanting to go out there. Wanting to explore, wanting to leave this place. She’s outgrown it, in more ways than one, and now the thought of staying here, _forever..._

It feels like she’ll regret not making a better deal when she had the chance.

But what is a better deal? Maybe she’s just too tired to think, but her mind is blank and now she’s just scrolling through stupid human comments, thinking _this is what I’ll have to deal with for the rest of my life..._

_woodzarcor4lyfe: [how does a bastlisk type lol theyve got no arms]_

Oh, god. Oh, no.

_SheldonHunts: [Actually, basilisks are classified as supernatural BEASTS instead of supernatural BEINGS. They’re non-sentient, so I’m preeetty sure you’re not a basilisk dude... cool post tho, was fun to read :)]_

Fucking. Humans. Why are they like this?

_Epicbl00dhound: [looooool i bet there’s so many dumbasses in the comments fallin for this………. your not a bastlicks buddy i bet you made this up to feel special……… i bet your just some guy in your moms basement pretending…… dont pretend cuz humans are THE BEST we beat all other spacies (watch pronatpat he has the TRUTH) so get out of there….. be a human!]_

Ughhhhhhhh, why is this her life? Why can’t she-

Wait.

Lacie reads that last comment again. Through all the weird grammar and the pro-nat grossness and everything else she doesn’t even want to unpack… it’s giving her an idea.

_Be a human..._

A strange, strange idea - but it might just actually work.


	2. Chapter 2

Oh, my stars. Alcor hasn’t laughed this hard in lifetimes.

_Chapter 2 of Wizard Animago’s Not-So-Secret Spellbook - Everything You Already Knew About Transfiguration and Literally Nothing Else_

_Hi, I’m 18Lacie5 and I wrote another chapter for you humans. Everyone was really confused on my last post and seemed to think it was a joke, so I’ll start out by answering the five most common questions you had._

_1 - Yes, I am a basilisk._

_2 - No, I am not the basilisk from Harry Potter._

_3 - No, I do not live in the Chamber of Secrets from Harry Potter._

_4 - No, I am not the horcrux snake from Harry Potter._

_5 - No, I am not in any way related to Harry Potter._

_Are we all on the same page now? Good, because holy shit some of you really missed the point here. I got a visit from one of you with a replica of Gryffindor’s sword, and that was so annoying I didn’t even feel bad killing him - like dude, all that tells me is I KNOW you read my post about not coming down here, and then decided to come down here anyway ‘cause fuck me, right?_

_(The sword wasn’t even that good. It was made of cheap plastic, snapped like a spine.)_

_Anyway, despite all this the last post was fun to write, so I’m doing it again. Also it seems like the number of visits from treasure hunters has gone down since I posted, though it’s hard to tell. There’s not really a consistent number from year to year, and the day I start keeping a deathcount is the day I give up on life and buy a mirror to see if I can kill myself with my own reflection._

_For science, you know?_

Alcor’s read the entire blog by now and it’s just perfect. The snark, the sarcasm, the casual disregard towards human lives that could only have been written by an ancient and powerful being - it’s _hilarious!_ And the spell entries… man, he could listen to Lacie tear apart someone’s Latin any day of the decade. If only she could come to some of his summons; she’d have so much material to work with there.

With a chuckle, Alcor looks up and glances around the darkness of the Mindscape. He needs to show this to someone. But who? Mizar? She’s only a year into the current reincarnation… hmm, she might be a little too young to understand it. Lucy Ann’s somewhere around; he probes for her, and finds her - dammit - during naptime at some kindergarten in Portland.

Anyone else?

…

No one else.

There’s absolutely no one else in his life right now. That’s… that’s a fun reminder.

He sighs, and sits back on the fabric of reality. Maybe some cultists’ll summon him; he could read them a blog post, see if they laugh. That’d be fun, right?

Al narrows his eyes at the great nothingness before him. It’d be something, at least.

...You know, he can feel a little tug now.

A weak one, just one summoner, and no circle. That confuses him at first - even the real amateurs usually manage to scribble out some sort of rounded shape - and when he looks closer, he sees it’s holding one of his summoning cards, holding it in its… hand?

No, not quite a hand, and Alcor jolts right up as he realises _shit that’s Lacie trying to call him, shit he didn’t think she’d call him back so soon!_ How long did he keep her waiting? It’s been a couple hours - shit!

Alcor tessers over to her in an instant, his mouth already open and spilling apologies: “Oh my stars Lacie, _I am so sorry_ for the delay! I got distracted and I didn’t think you’d call back so soon so I wasn’t watching as closely as I-”

A deep, rumbling growl cuts him off. It’s a deafening sound, coming from a creature lounging on a pile of bones and gold with teeth the size of Alcor’s entire body; he can’t help but cringe at that. He takes a deep breath, remind himself that he’s an all-powerful demon who definitely doesn’t need to be scared of some mere mortal… even if she is pretty scary for a mortal.

You know, relatively speaking. He isn’t scared, he just thinks she’s scarier than, like, a human. Like a human from that pile of human skeletons she’s smashed into the wall. Yeah, that’s not scary at all. That wouldn’t kill him… looks like it would hurt, though.

He double checked he isn’t standing near that spellbook she’s bound to, right?

Just as he’s thinking this, Lacie lets out another even louder growl, and he jumps back with an undignified yelp.

“Hey, whoa, Lacie!” Alcor watches her head shift to the side. “Lacie? Hello?”

She doesn’t reply, and he looks to her face for an answer. He sees one of her eyes now: it’s closed?

_Closed._

The realisation washes over him as she lets out another slow, rumbling snore.

“Oh. You’re… you’re just sleeping, aren’t you. Duh.” He straightens, and casts a glance around the room as he fixes his tie and straightens his hat. “Glad no one noticed that… Lacie?”

She doesn’t stir, and Alcor makes a face. He’s never turned up to a summons and had the summoner fall asleep; would she want him to wake her up? Her dreams feel pretty peaceful to him, and even though that thing - is that a giant laptop? - she’s using as a pillow doesn’t look particularly comfy, it doesn’t seem to bother her in the slightest.

Yeah, it looks like he should just let her call him back… but there is _something._ Embedded in her sluggish thoughts, he can feel a sort of drive, a sort of desperation, and that makes him hesitate. He looks for her tail, and spots it still wrapped around his summoning card, still squeezing it in a death grip.

Alcor frowns. He watches her snore one more time, then makes up his mind. With a deep breath, he reaches out and prods at her thoughts; they immediately begin to stir. He prods again, and Lacie lets out a grunt. Her eyelid cracks open, and she drags a sleepy glare across the room.

Her gaze meets his, and _he feels pain, pain in his soul, his soul feels like it’s being pushed out through his ears ow ow OW-_ and he recoils, unable to bear it for a second longer.

Wow, he thinks, that really is potent. What on earth makes it so powerful?

Before he can wonder about that, there’s a noise. Gold coins clink against each other as Lacie jerks up, blinking hard, panic flashing in her aura. Alcor holds up his hands.

“Hey, hey, it’s just me!” He looks down as she fixes her eyes on him. “Sorry if you, uh, didn’t want to be woken up, I just thought… you know, you called me, and… what are you doing?”

She’s cast the summoning card aside and is now wiggling the touchpad on her laptop. He cocks his head.

“Whoa, I’ve never seen a laptop that big. Where on Earth did you buy that?”

Lacie doesn’t acknowledge his question. She starts typing something, and he floats closer to see her login screen.

“18Lacie5. Heh, I like your username.” He watches her click on the password box and slowly, painstakingly jab each key with her tail. “E… Y… E… What? Why are you looking at me like- oh. Oh, I’m so sorry!”

There’s a faint snort from Lacie as he turns away. His cheeks redden.

“Sorry, I forget hu- uh, mortals? Mortals tend to like their privacy on stuff… it’s kind of useless since Al-V can hack into pretty much any computer on earth - um, the Alcor Virus, that’s Alvie.” He hears the typing stop, and suddenly wishes he’d chosen literally any other topic in the world. “Um, not that I would make him hack into your computer! I’m just saying he could, and he probably has already… um, I just made him to get rid of Twin Souls though, you’re fine! O-or you should be fine - you don’t, by any chance, happen to like Twin Souls, do you? It’s, um, this book - well it’s a movie now but it was a book - and Mizar - _who is my sister by the way_ \- well, that’s why I hate it, because it has my sister and I, umm…ugh, sorry, it’s gross, my sister and I, we’re- huh?”

A low hiss makes him look back, and he sees Lacie - _ow_ \- staring right at him. She gestures to the screen, which has a word document open on it with big, bold letters.

“Oh, you want me to read that?” He floats closer, and frowns as he reads the first line:

_Im pretending 2 type rite now 2 see how long u wil ramble 4 wtf youre still going and now twin souls no nono why r u explaning i actually cant take the awkwardnes i got 2 stop u_

Alcor blinks, then shoots her a dirty look. The noise coming out of her now sounds an awful lot like snickering.

“Wha- I was just-! I just wanted to clarify the hacking thing I said, I-!” The snickering gets louder, and he rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, I guess I’m a _little_ rusty at small talk, very funny. I’d like to see how awkward you’d be if the only practice you could get is on a bunch of cultists in basements. They’re not exactly social butterflies either, you know!”

Lacie just keeps laughing, and Alcor… well, he puts on a show of crossing his arms and heaving a long-suffering sigh, but he’s fighting a smile.

It’s strangely nice, being here. Lacie’s strangely nice to be around; she already feels - and he has to remind himself he’s only met her twice - almost like a friend? Maybe he just has a low bar these days, but he hears her laughter, and… it’s just very, very nice. Nice in a way that’s hard to describe.

Nice in a way he hasn’t felt for a while.

The feeling lingers even after Lacie’s chuckling dies off, and he’s still smiling as he watches her reach for the laptop again. She jabs the down arrow a couple times, and some more, better punctuated text comes into view.

 _I have revised the terms of our deal,_ it starts, and Alcor clears his throat, squares his shoulders, tries to get himself back into business mode. He reads on: _and I would like to exchange the human bones that are currently in my room for a human disguise I am capable of putting on and taking off at will._

He raises an eyebrow as he reaches the end. This is not the deal he was expecting to make. A human disguise… he can tell she’s no demonologist, that’s for sure; there’s so many interpretations of that, so many _wonderful ways to tw͏is͡t her̡ ̵w̢or̵d̸s ͏a͟g̢ai͘n̸st͠ ̢h͝er-_

No. He shakes his head to clear it of his worst instincts, but they won’t leave, not in the presence of such an enticing deal. Suddenly, he’s glad he doesn’t have to look her in the eyes right now; he trains them on the ground instead, and starts to speak.

“So, um… when you’re saying a ‘human disguise’, what do you mean by that?” He can’t see her face, but he can see a bolt of frustration flash across her aura. “Huh? What’s- oh right, can’t talk, uh… well, do you want me to make an actual, convincing disguise? You know, instead of, like, a wig and some sunglasses?”

Lacie nods vigourously. He watches her tap the caps key and add _‘CONVINCING’_ before the human disguise bit. A part of him screams at all the opportunities he’s giving up - _willingly!_ \- but he forces a smile and nods.

“Cool, I can do that. I’ve made a few humans before- human _bodies,_ that is, not… um.” Alcor coughs. “Anyway, I can give you a convincing human form for those bones of yours. How does that sound?”

She taps the screen.

“What…? Oh, yes, I’ll make it so you can switch back and forth at will. Good catch. Now, do we have a d̕e͇̪͍̜̻̪͘a̙̻̬̦͔ͅl̲̝͓͔?”

He doesn’t extend a hand to shake, but blue sparks spurt from his fingertips as he watches Lacie mull it over. Her aura fizzles with nervous energy, but it only takes a couple seconds for her to tamp it down and give him a firm nod. The rush of a newly made deal makes his grin go wide; he tries not to let it go too wide as he claps his hands together.

“Alrighty, then,” he says, rubbing them until those sparks turn into a full-blown fire. “One meatsuit coming right up!”

He extends a hand to the pile of bones in the corner of the room, and with a flick of the wrist he rips the energy from them all and absorbs it. The sacrifice warms him like a good meal, and he turns back to Lacie, ready to put that newly-gained power to use.

He steps back and sizes her up with his hands, a gesture that makes her aura simmer with uncertainty. She makes a low, nervous sound, and he waves her away.

“It’s alright, I just… need to remember how big a human is, how much I need to squish you down... Got it!!” Alcor readies his fingers to snap. “Okay, I’ve only done this on myself before, so there might be some kinks I haven’t thought of! Don’t worry, though, I’ll probably be able to fix them!”

Before Lacie could respond, he _snaps_ his fingers, and his magic rushes around her like a cloud. Skin forms over scales, hair grows over horns, and the figure that remains when it disperses is unmistakably human.

It’s also falling to the ground from the height of Lacie’s head, and _oh shit catch her catch her catch her_ \- he freezes her momentum a couple inches from the ground then lets her plop, safely but definitely not gracefully, into a puddle.

“Oh, my stars! Are you okay?” Heart pounding in his chest, he dashes over. “I am so sorry about that fall, how are you- ow, _okay_ , I’m gonna need to get you some sunglasses or something - how are you feeling? Here, let me help you up!”

He extends a hand, and Lacie… just stares at it.

Just stares at him, not moving, and he can feel panic flaring up in her aura as _she can’t move, oh stars she’s so tiny right now and she can’t move oh fuck-_

Alcor blinks. “Oh, right. Um, don’t panic-”

_Don’t panic??? DON’T PANIC??? FUCK THIS SHE’S LIKE FIVE INCHES TALL RIGHT NOW AND SHE CAN’T FUCKING MOVE OH MY STARS WHY DID SHE DO THIS TO HERSELF THIS IS THE STUPIDEST FUCKING IDEA SHE’S EVER HAD IN HER LIFE-_

“Lacie? Take a deep breath… Lacie? _Lacie!”_ He cringes when Lacie’s eyes fix on him again. “Okay, um, I can see this is… a little stressful for you?”

She nods vigourously.

“Alright, um… don’t worry, I made it easy for you to change back! You just, y’know, gotta think of yourself being a basilisk again - or is it pronounced ‘battle-isk’? ‘Bas-til-isk’? Heh, that’s a weird word, I’ve only ever seen it written down-”

Lacie ditches her human disguise as fast as she could, shooting back out to her original form and cutting Alcor off mid-tangent. He jumps back, watching relief flood through her aura as _she could move again, thank the stars she could actually move and everything’s normal sized again… fuck, everything’s normal sized again. She wasted her deal!_

The relief’s spiking up into another panic, and Alcor clears his throat. “Alright, so that deal didn’t go to plan. No worries! I can’t exactly do refunds, but you’ve still got plenty of good stuff to sacrifice in here! Doesn’t bother me if this takes a few tries, heh.”

But that doesn’t calm Lacie in the slightest, because _now she has to think of another deal, her mind’s blank, she’s got nothing! But she’ll fall asleep if she makes Alcor leave again… maybe she will have to go for_ that _deal._

It’s hard to read her thoughts when they go quiet, but Alcor definitely picks up something about _that_ deal as they’re retreating into a murky bubble of disappointment. He sees how she hangs her head at the idea, then lugs her laptop over to her, begins to peck away at the keys.

He sees that, and frowns. “Hey, uh,” he starts, and right away her eyes dart over to him. “If you don’t want to make a new deal, I’m sure we could make this one work?”

Lacie cocks her head.

“I mean, I’ve been… I know a thing or two about being in a human body. It’s been a while, but maybe I could… y’know, show you the ropes?”

She doesn’t say a word. The silence stretches, and Alcor laughs nervously.

“I-if you want. I mean, it’s been a while, but maybe I could show you enough to get around? I did technically promise your disguise would be ‘convincing’, so a couple human lessons should be easy enough to fit in, without… without another deal... um, I don’t know if you like this idea or you want me to stop talking? If you do that’s fine, I can do another deal, just give me a-”

There’s a sort of _fwoomp_ sound, and the coils and coils of Lacie’s body seem to twist out of existence. At the same time, a human takes shape where her head was, and falls right into Alcor’s arms before he has time to blink.

“-a sign?” He finishes, and stares down at her. She stares right back, and he’d admire the steely resolve, the carefully-controlled fear in her gaze a whole lot longer if it didn’t make his soul want to push itself out through his ears.

“Oh, Okay. Wow, you’re, um… diving right in, huh?”

Lacie gives her closest approximation to a human smile, and Alcor’s caught off guard by how quickly he finds himself grinning back. An actual, genuine grin stretches across his face for the first time in too long, and he chuckles.

“Alright, Lacie, I like your gumption!” He summons a pair of sunglasses, and sticks them over her eyes. “Let’s get humaning!”

* * *

Humaning. Lacie had taught herself many human things over the years; she’d taught herself to read, to type, to write - heck, she’d even managed to summon a demon (and in proper human tradition, had made a poorly thought-out deal with it.) She was no novice in learning how to human.

Maybe that’s why she thought the whole human form was a good idea. She was great at humaning! She’d taught herself so many of their skills, educated herself on so many of their customs, she was able to pass as one of them online… sometimes, it really didn’t feel like she was all that different from them.

After all, if she could read like a human and write like a human and think like a human, how hard could it be to walk around like one, too?

…

As it turns out, hard.

Very, very hard.

_Duh._

Everything, _everything_ is different in a human body. Sure, she thought having arms and legs would take some getting used to, but how about all this hair? How about her cramped little mouth and her stubby tongue? How about _her skin?_ Her skin is stupidly sensitive without scales; when she was lying on the stone, she could feel every little bump in it, could feel water soaking her, making her shiver - and shivering, ugh! What an awful sensation! Even though Alcor’s got her propped her up in a chair now, her skin won’t stop whining to her that, _gasp,_ the fabric’s a little itchy!

Whoop de fucking do, skin. Hopefully she grows a thicker one soon enough, because this is driving her crazy. She’s laughing at the Lacie of a couple hours ago who thought she’d just be able to stand up and walk out of the sewers, and oh, speaking of walking?

Hah! Try moving them at all!

Lacie’s been without these strange appendages all her life, and moving them would be like a human trying to nod with a second head they’ve just sprouted - sometimes she’ll get lucky and hit upon whatever bundle of nerves is controlling each of these limbs, and after two hours of Alcor’s patient coaching she can make them twitch on a somewhat consistent basis, but she’s not getting anywhere fast with them any time soon.

She can only lie here, with her blunt teeth, with her papery skin, with her useless limbs…

_Helpless._

_Absolutely helpless._

Alcor looms over her whenever he stands up… and that scares her more than she thought it would. _Everything_ looms over her in this form; the - she called it little - pile of treasure she sleeps on now seems like a great mountain, the ceiling she often bangs her head on is higher still, impossibly high. She sees her spellbook resting on its lecturn, and it’s about the same size as her now; she remembers how tiny it once seemed, and- OH FUCK WHAT’S GOING- oh, she’s shivering again.

Lacie frowns at that, and she lets out a noise that’s weirdly squeaky in this throat, and Alcor taps her shoulder.

(And she _feels_ that, holy shit skin it’s literally just a hand)

“...need to take a break?” He’s asking. Frowning. “Lacie?”

She nods, quickly, and he takes the sunglasses off her face before scooting back. Closing her eyes, she thinks of being a basilisk again, and all these alien sensations fall away with a flood of relief. Lacie is _herself_ again; she takes a long moment to savour it, to lounge across her sleeping pile, to listen to her scales scratch against the stone floor, to open an eye and see Alcor as a tiny figure in her field of vision.

“That looks comfy.” He says. He’s grinning, but she can barely make that out. “Darn, I should’ve moved the chair, too.”

The chair? She lifts her body, and finds the chair she’d been sitting on, crushed beneath the weight of her coils. With a little chuckle, she sweeps it out from under her, marvelling at how tiny it is - how tiny she was.

Alcor laughs, too. “Sheesh, you flattened it. I think it’ll be easier to make a new chair.”

Laying her head on the ground, she lets out a lazy snort.

“…um, when you’re ready, I mean.” He adds. “Or we can stop, if you’re tired? I can-”

She heaves herself up. Ugh, she is tired - it creeps up on her. She can’t sleep though, not when she’s so close, _so fucking close_ to getting out of here.

“Oh, okay… are you sure? We’ve been at this a while, I really don’t mind taking a break…”

Lacie tugs at that mental link in the back of her mind, and feels herself switch back into human form again. Unlike switching the other way, this form greets her not with a flood of relief, but with a host of silly little complaints: her back hurts, the stone’s not comfy on her face, it’s cold, she’s wet, on and on and on and she just wants it all to _shut up…_ but, she will admit, there is one thing she likes.

Alcor hoists her up on one of those tiny little chairs she’d been laughing at just a second ago, and she stares at him, and she feels awake.

Completely awake.

She can’t remember the last time her head’s felt this clear, and it’s a pity she has to spend half her human time fidgeting in a seat because otherwise it’d be amazing. Is this really how bad the energy situation had gotten down here? Wow, she really needed to get out of here, and fast.

“Hey, Lacie?” Alcor’s saying something, and she looks over at him. “So I know you said - or, uh, indicated, anyway - that you didn’t want a break…”

He pauses expectantly, and then, seeming to realise she isn’t going to follow it up with a ‘Yes?’ clears his throat.

“Right. Well, I kind of would. Like a break. If that’s okay with you.”

Lacie blinks.

“You know, we’ve been doing this for a while, and I’m thinking maybe we could do something else? You know, it could be something fun! It could be something like, um, like… oh, do you play Scrabble?”

She shakes her head.

“No? Oh, I guess that was a longshot… how bout chess? I know there’s like, online chess… no?” He frowns at her continued head-shaking. “Alright, well… What do you do for fun down here?”

Lacie thinks on that for a moment, then turns her head towards the laptop.

“Oh, your laptop? Nice, nice.” He grins at her. “I love your blog.”

Wait, her blog? He’s read that? He _likes_ that? The surprise must be showing on her face, because Alcor starts laughing.

“Yeah, it’s hilarious! I was actually so caught up reading it, I didn’t realise you were summoning me! I love just how sarcastic it is! It’s amazing!”

Lacie blinks. Is he… gushing? Is Alcor the Dreambender gushing about her blog?

Is this her life?

“Man,” he rambles on. “that joke about a killcount, that was great. I just don’t get why it’s not more popular! Humans, they just don’t have any taste… they’re, heh, they’re too busy reading Harry Potter, amirite?”

He nudges her like he’s made some kind of clever reference, and she snorts at him. Okay, wow, demon or not, this guy really is an absolute plonker. She loves it.

“Haha, yeah! They’ve been, uh, playing Quidditch too much to read your stuff! Yeah! Or they’ve been, um… making swords? Making- I should stop now, shouldn’t I.”

With a big dumb grin on her face, she nods.

“Yep, that was getting out of hand.” Alcor rubs his neck. “I just wanted to say I really liked it a lot. It was funny.”

Lacie’s grin got even bigger.

“So, uh, you really have been down here all your life, huh? Dealing with treasure hunters-” He chuckles when she rolls her eyes. “Hah, I can imagine that’s not fun! Yeah... so, uh, have you ever been outside?”

She shakes her head. Maybe before she was old enough to remember, but that was a long, long time ago. Alcor makes a face at that.

“Yeah, yeesh. No wonder you want to get out of here, no wonder…”

He trails off, and Lacie watches his eyes go distant for a second before a thought seems to strike him; he blinks, frowns, then, slowly, he starts to grin. He turns to her again, and she raises an eyebrow at the shine in his eyes.

“Hey, Lacie,” he says. “Want me to take you on a little tour?”


End file.
